


Aftermath

by ladytrollfishes (tangelotime)



Series: The Granite Guts Debacle [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Gen, PTSD shit, Trauma and recovery, this is fantrolls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 03:07:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 8,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16673560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangelotime/pseuds/ladytrollfishes
Summary: Collection of drabbles about life Post-Granite Guts for the rebel crew





	1. Immediate Aftermath

Ferra manages to cut Izinal out of the helm. She’s focused on her work, cutting line after line of biowire while Izinal awkwardly tries to talk to her.

“We uh knew each other huh?” he says. She nods, giving distracted answers as she continues to sever the lines, eventually cutting free one dessicated limb, then another, until she pulls out Izinal’s torso. He’s missing all of his limbs, and so she sets him down on the ground and ties off the tubes that are too dangerous to just pull out, like the ones hanging out of his stomach.

“I got you,” Ferra murmurs, and severs the stomach tubes and ties them off. “Sorry Izinal, I’m so distracted. We’re gonna need to get you new everythings.”

Herlyn gets off the phone with Bonnie, who is now on her way, having shaken her imperial tail.

“Is that really him?” She knew about what happened to Izinal but she never really knew him before everything happened.

Ferra nods and she whistles low.

“Damn,” Herlyn says. “Well can you get him up and down the ladders? We got two people we need to carry around now.”

“If I don’t need to carry you too,” Ferra snaps. “You were shot, remember?”

Herlyn looks down at the wound and shrugs. “Well the bleeding’s stopped,” she says. “I’m just a little woozy. We should uh, probably make sure Daginy is okay. They probably got tossed around quite a bit.”

As they position themselves to ascend the stairs, Izinal, stuck to Ferra’s back, glances backwards.

Ironbelly says, “You’re too slow.”

Izinal says, “Uh oh.”

They all go hurtling upwards.

Daginy, awake, blinks slowly against the metal of the ship’s floor. Their covered wounds pulse slowly with insistent pain. This was a new place, which was strange. They didn’t think Aubade would have brought them somewhere new unless it was necessary. They simply wait for her to reappear. Trying too much resulted in more pain, and they already had so much of it to bear.

What happens instead is a wave of psychic power comes over them and they slide along the floor, at top speed until they’re thrown from a trap door, landing in the grass.

They don’t make a sound, but they hear yelling from above them.

“Whaaaaaaaa!!”

 Three more bodies land on top of them.

 Daginy cries out, their back, their legs- their everything squished underneath the weight of random flailing limbs.

 “Shit sorry- fuck,” says a familiar voice.

“Get off of them!” says another voice and the weight lifts, as people are dragged out of the way and Daginy looks up at the faces of their friends, Herlyn, Ferra, and someone they don’t know.  

He looks up as the ship above them takes off again, psi churning around it as it leaps into the atmosphere. 

“I guess Ironbelly couldn’t wait,” he murmurs.

 Did Aubade set up some virtual reality? It’s an odd one, if it is, but if she’s watching– speaking their names might give them away. Daginy stays silent, sure that it’s a trap.

“Hey,” Herlyn says with a sad smile. “Hey it’s okay, we got you out.” Maybe it was a hallucination?

“Oh Daginy,” Ferra sighs. “Your eye.” A hand touches their cheek on their blind side and they flinch.

“Sorry,” they say, and Daginy starts struggling to sit up. Investigating this seemed important Their wrists protest at any weight put on them, their fingers in splints. Moving hurts. Herlyn reaches out a hand to help, then thinks better of it, retracting.

They’re outside- they’re in a forest, with the moons hanging above. The air is clean here, far away from the hubbub of the city. And there are people sitting around them. 

Daginy reaches out with broken fingers and touches Herlyn’s face, which has such a curious look of heartbreak on it. It’s not like her. She shouldn’t look like that. 

“Daginy?” she whispers, and the truth of it pierces them like an arrow– Herlyn’s really there. They look over at Ferra who looks at them in the same way, and the helmsman who peers at them curiously. They’re there too. Aubade wouldn’t cook up the helm– they don’t know him.

 This is real.  

 Aubade is far, far away. They… they’re safe.

 They start to shake, taking in deep, gasping breaths as too many emotions crash onto them at  once. It’s one flood after another, mixing together, difficult to identify.

 “What’s- what’s wrong?” Herlyn asks frantic as Daginy shakes their head, pulling weakly for her to come closer as tears pour out of their remaining eye. Their wordless feelings weighing down their tongue like dry cotton in the mouth.

 Herlyn scoots closer, concerned and Daginy rests their forehead on her shoulder, but says no more.


	3. Daginy

A pit of guilt sinks into your stomach as Herlyn’s face stares back at you from the newspaper. If you hadn’t gotten caught– if you hadn’t messed up so badly, she wouldn’t be in this position now. She shouldn’t have come. You’re honestly kind of surprised Alnica let her do this.

You should have died in there.

You’ve already been compromised. Aubade knows your name, face, motives, and at least one project you’ve worked on, and you know from there she’ll know what to look for. Everything you’ve done is at risk. Anything you do in the future will be in danger.

Maybe you could go after her in return but that would mean… that would mean getting close to her again. The thought makes you tremble, and you clench at your chest with your unbroken fingers to make your hands stop shaking.

You abandon that thought. Your first priority has to be survival. You need to lay low until the news cycle breaks out over another story and everyone isn’t looking for Herlyn and Ferra again. Ferra’s not even part of the Magpie and they had come anyway. If you had tried harder to die, then maybe they wouldn’t have stormed in like that. They could have just found your dead body somewhere and then they’d know.

Survival. Focus on survival. You close your eyes, listening to yourself breath heavily.

You need to lay low. Get out of the city. The fact that Ironbelly’s helm ran off was actually great at getting the hot seat of the empire out from under you and into space, so you have some freedom to move. 

 Herlyn and Ferra are already changing the way they look and you can do that on the fly. If they need extra help, you’re always there. 

You’re sure Alnica is already bunkering down. With Herlyn’s face in the news like this, the imps are gonna be on Alnica’s tail too. She’s already prepared to lie, but none of you are going to see her again for a long while either, and you’re not sure Herlyn’s realized that yet. 

You need to get back in touch with Physeli, get another burner and set up the proxies. You need to make sure none of the leads you gave Aubade would lead to anything concrete and to that you’d have to keep an eye on her.

The information you gave her burned like hot iron in your brain, stuff she pried out of you with manipulation and pain, your values, your personality, your name.

You gave up your  _name._

You had a plethora of identities and she knew you for who you were. She knew it before you had even told Mysmus, the only person you had ever wanted to tell, who only knew you after you had adopted your shifting persona. 

You miss him. 

You’re so torn on the subject, because knowing you is dangerous. Liking you is worse. Letting him get attached to you, as you apparently did, was frankly irresponsible with your career choices and pushing him away before he could feel even more attached was a good idea. Hell, if he had known- if he had come after you with Herlyn and Ferra, he’d be in just as much danger as them. 

But even knowing all that  _you miss him_. 

You should.. you should at least apologize for getting him all mixed up in this. You’ll pass him on to someone else in the network, like you should have in the beginning. He can get some closure that way, and then you can disappear. 

Where would you go? 

Not the city, but somewhere less odd than a bunch of city trolls in the middle of the wilderness if you were stumbled upon. A small town? Where everyone could talk about them, with no halfway reasonable explanation to be there–

Wait, the Mouth. If you remember correctly there was a network of caverns that used to be rebel hideouts. You think Maecii, the girl with the ghost, had said there had been a rebellion there. The town itself was separated from the rest of the empire, and if you keep to yourselves in the caverns, maybe you can pass for an eclectic band of supernatural witches or something. 

You can focus on your next step. You can just keep your eyes forward. 


	3. Daginy:  Eat

_Daginy Chamae I 8 sweeps, 18 years | A day after their rescue in Sipara’s basement_

**cw: disordered eating, torture mentions and suicidal ideation**

–

You’re hungry.

It’s been awhile since you’ve wanted to act on that urge. Ferra had offered you soup a night ago, and with that refusal, you’ve also refused to eat anything else.

You’d rather be hungry.

It’s…. strange to be around this many people for this long. You get taken care of, and you know (you’re pretty sure at least) this is the best thing for you right now. It can only get better from here, Ferra had muttered to herself. You’re not sure she knew you were listening.

Going up. Getting better. The only things down from here would be a quick slide to death, really. If you died here, what did Ferra and Herlyn come get you for in the first place?

But if you’re not going to die- you’re going to need to eat.

You get unsteadily to your feet- sometimes you’re still not sure they’ll hold your weight, even though she didn’t really do anything to them- and make your way to the kitchen. You’re not sure if the weakness you feel in your shoulders is because your wounds haven’t healed, or if you haven’t eaten.

You only have so much time before the others come back. You can prioritize grain and protein, if you can find it.

Sipara’s kitchen isn’t anything terribly special. She lives, mostly, out in a van with Hadean you know. You still ought to check everything out, see what she can spare- or have the others brought groceries back with them? You don’t know. You haven’t been keeping track all that well.

Still. Food.

You wedge your finger casts into the space between the thermal hull and its handle and pull. It doesn’t open. Did she glue it shut, or have you just gotten this weak?

You have to brace your shoulder against the door, ignoring the pull of the wounds on your back and push with all your weight behind it before the door pops open, and by then you’re shaking and your head hurts.

You really have just gotten that weak.

The inside of the hull is pretty bare.

There’s a couple styrofoam takeout trays, a jar of jam and some small containers of yogurt.

You fumble with the takeout lid- when it opens you find a plastic fork jammed into a pile of fried rice and green beans. It’s food- your stomach rumbles, but something keeps you from digging in. Some disinterest, some sort of snub- you don’t think about it too hard.

Your digestion sac rumbles a protest, but you’ve gotten good at ignoring its complaints as you close it again, and instead reach for the yogurt cups. Yogurt has protein and fat- it would be a good idea.

Your casts can’t get a good hold on the foil lid so you take your teeth to it. You peel it back with your hands clamped around the cup.

You could use a spoon but you don’t want to take the time to find one, so you just tip it back into your mouth. The second you suck down the first of the yogurt the rest of it is gone. You don’t even taste it you swallow it so fast.

You tear open the next container of yogurt, then the next. Yogurt slops onto your face and you don’t even care.

You eye the take out again. Are you hungry enough now? Your digestion sac is really growling now, aching like it’ll burst. You’re at least hungry enough to try.

Your fat, broken fingers can’t handle the fork- you try for a moment but you’re not patient enough. You end up just shoving your face into the tray. The food is cold, but you grab a mouthful of rice anyway. As you raise your head to chew, the grains shift with an ugly, cutting familiarity.

It’s all she used to feed you. Spooned to your mouth. There was no refusal. Your fingers suffered the consequences if you turned your head or spat it back out. How many times did she wrap her fingers around your mouth and force you to swallow?

There’s a hand on your mouth now- the floor under you is cold, you must have fallen at some point- and there’s rice scattered underneath you. You take a moment of terror- she’d hurt you worse for the waste, before you remember she’s not there. You’re out. You’re out and you escaped, and you don’t need to- to- you don’t know. You don’t need to something.

Your pumper throbs painfully in your chest as you pull your hands away from your mouth. This is Sipara’s kitchen.

You force yourself to look back around the room. The moons might not hang in here and the rooms may be small and insulated, but it held every sign of being a lived in space- casual clutter and decoration, a stove- it wasn’t that blank room where you were held.

You were half conscious from the pain of losing your eye and getting jostled around, and when you woke up properly, it wasn’t Aubade. It was night sky and the faces of the friends you hadn’t seen in perigees. You remember that. That was real. It was real.

You have to coax yourself into believing it wasn’t a dream before you can spit your mouthful of rice on the floor. You can’t look at it without your stomach twisting with revulsion- even so, you want to throw up.

At the sound of footsteps you freeze- you need to clean this up before you get caught- but there’s no way that’s going to happen. You stare up at the kitchen entrance- it’s Herlyn, and you know, you know she’s not going to hurt you, but you still flinch. She jumps backwards when you move, arms wheeling.

“Handmaid,” she swears. “Daginy, what the fuck?”

You don’t have an answer for her. You feel your shoulders start to shake as you realize what this has to look like- curled up in the remains of the food you just stole in front of the thermal hull you didn’t even have the decency to close.

You put your head in your hands and bite your bottom lip. The wound in your head throbs but no tears come.

“Aw shit c’mon now,” Herlyn mutters. She puts something down- you hear plastic crinkle hit the ground, and pulls up gingerly next to you. “Can you get up? Need a hand? Fuck, man, I’ll clean this up for you. If you wanted food you could have just asked instead of spilling my takeout everywhere.”

You look carefully back at her- she’s got a hand extended, waiting for you to take. You’re aching absolutely everywhere. Can you get up? It’s obviously the next step, no matter that some part of you would rather lay down and die.

You take her hand gingerly, and she scoops you up, a quick motion that has your pumper scramble up your throat, but it’s over almost as soon as it starts as she settles you in a chair. You feel yourself withdraw, staring down at the table as Herlyn busies herself around the kitchen.

“Boy am I glad you’re eating though,” she says, grabbing some napkins and sweeping up the food. “We were really getting worried there. Gotta eat to get better and all that. Is there something in particular you want?”

You don’t know how to answer that. You don’t have the energy to figure out the right answer so instead you just stay silent, staring at the table.

You hear Herlyn dump the rice in the trash and then sigh.

“Well there’s still the curry in the hull,” she says and pulls out the other take out container. “I’ll just… pop it in the microwave and heat that up for you.”

You should have checked the other container. Then you would have gotten something other than a mouth full of shitty rice.

Herlyn pulls the take out and puts it in front of you. It’s little circles of meat and potato and onions in curry. It’s already half eaten but your stomach rumbles gently. There’s no rice in this tray.

You can’t bring yourself to do it. You can’t bring yourself to pick up the spoon- or at least to lift your hand, or to do anything.

“C’mon Dags,” Herlyn says pleadingly, sliding into the seat next to you. “At least say something?”

You glance up at her. She’s got her brow furrowed and her mouth pressed in worry. Her horns are shorn short and her hair is cut. She’s even wearing fake glasses. A disguise. To help her hide from what she had done for you.

You don’t know how to answer her. What do you say? What should you say? You swallow, but no words come out. You don’t know what to tell her, so instead you just look back down.

“Do you want to eat?” she asks. “C’mon Dags. Eat something.”

You shake your head, just slightly, and you’re struck with the sudden sensation that something is about to happen. Something bad. You keep your eyes down and wait.

There’s a long pause but all that happens is that Herlyn sighs.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay. I’ll just leave this here in front of you, okay? So when you’re hungry, you can eat.”

You nod then, and this time Herlyn’s sigh is of relief.

“You’ll be okay here?”

You nod.

“I’ll just be in the next block over okay?”

You nod again and Herlyn stands up.

“Try and get something to eat okay?”

You just want her to leave, so you nod. You stare down the curry until you hear her slip out of the block and out of earshot. You had decided you were going to eat. You could do this.

You pick up the spoon.

You eat slower than you had attacked the yogurt. You’re hungry, yes, but it feels almost novel to eat like this again- you forgot what it was like not to have everything hurt- and you have to savor every bite. 

You don’t stop, even when tears roll down your face and into your food. 


	4. Daginy: Begin Again

You lose yourself in long stretches of time without doing anything.

It’s like you can’t remember how to act anymore. You don’t have the energy for it the bravery for it. It’s all you can do to exist.

You felt this before. Times where you’ve gotten hurt when you’ve lost when you’ve failed, but picking yourself up again has never felt harder.

It seems ridiculous now that you’re out that making a decision as simple as moving could scare you so badly. The standards Aubade set were drilled into you so hard you don’t know where they start and where they stop, but you know it wasn’t right.

You  _know_  Ferra, Herlyn, Izinal, they won’t hit you if you flinch, but you’re still scared, and honestly with Sipara, you’re not sure.

But you’re safe now. You should be safe.

You spend more time doing nothing until Ferra comes in with soup.

“Here,” she says. You’re laying on your side on the couch and she sits down at the edge of the seat next to you, careful not to touch you. They balance the tray on their lap. “You haven’t eaten in ages.”

You have to respond. You’re already scared, you don’t know what they want. You’re not sure if you should get up- you’d have to, to eat soup.

“Come on,” Ferra says, a verbal prod. You move then, slowly pushing yourself up. Your wrists do not like bending, your back protests at every movement. 

You draw yourself up so that you can look her in the eye. You can’t do it for very long. Instead you look down at the soup.

It’s a sort of stew, thick, with chunks of vegetables and meat, and you can’t do it. You can’t eat it.

You hate soup. You specifically hate soup you didn’t make yourself. It doesn’t matter how hungry you are- you aren’t eating something that can be dosed so easily.

“Oh right,” Ferra says. “Fingers.” They are broken. “Let me help you with that.” They pick up the spoon and dip it into the soup lifting it to your lips.

You freeze. You breathe in blood and pain and breath out fear. Aubade’s leaning forward, you hand in hers, as she spoon feeds you.

“Come on,” she says, her voice distorted. “Eat.”

Depend on me, she as good as says. Trust me.

“C'mon,” she says again, the spoon bumping against your lip, spilling onto your chin. “You gotta eat.”

You don’t move.

“Daginy!” Ferra exclaims in frustration, and puts the bowl back down. You breathe again, back in Sipara’s basement, in a different small room with a different person you were thinking of. “You  _never_ do what’s good for you, goddammit!”

What she does is put the tray on the table and stand, throwing her hands up on the air.

“Fine,” they snap. “Eat it yourself, since that’s how you like to do everything,”

She walks out without a second glance.

What she doesn’t do is reach over, take hold of a finger and wrench it backwards until it breaks. She doesn’t tell you punishing ungrateful brats is the only way they’ll learn to appreciate what’s good in life because you’re lucky she’s giving you a second chance. She doesn’t wipe away your tears and feed bland, tasteless food and promise that things will just be okay if you just tell her everything.

You reach out for the bowl, barely healed skin stretching painfully, cupping it in both hands, the casts clacking against the sides. You tilt it, your wrists protesting from the movement and pour the contents into the tray. The soup slides slowly out of it, each chunk of food inside plopping out with little splashes.

It’s viscerally satisfying and when you’re done, soup has spilled through the hand holds and pooled a little onto the table. You place the empty bowl back on the tray in the middle of the soupy mess and lay back down even as your stomach growls.

This was a victory. You’re out.

You’re really out. 


	5. Ferra:  Be so Goddamn Conflicted

“Seriously?” It’s the first word out of your mouth, and honestly? You’ve said it a helluva lot lately. “You wanted to go rescue an heiress?”

“She needs help,” Daginy says. Handmaid’s mercy, they’re staring up at you through a haze of brown tears, like you’re the one who kidnapped Tahiti or whatever her name was. You take a deep breath, groaning, and run your hands back over your newly bald head, the one that you had to shave because you risked your neck to save theirs.

“ _You_  need help,” you snap. “Demon tits, have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?”

And they do look terrible. Even with Mysmus fussing over them all the time, they don’t eat as often as they should. They have heavy bags under their one remaining eye, and you can hear them sobbing and screaming sometimes from the other room.

“I didn’t ask you to m-make my decisions for me,” they say.

“You fucking dumbass,” you snap back. “I think your friends have the right to let you know when your decisions are stupid.”

You’re really running low on patience these last few days. Especially with Daginy’s bullshit.

What you’re surprised about, however, is that Daginy doesn’t quip back at you. Instead they curl even closer in on themself, tucking their chin into their chest.

“Sorry,” they whisper. “I’m sorry.” They clutch at their hair with their still-broken fingers, shaking, and you groan. You take a deep breath, and push the irritation as far away as you can.

“Daginy,” you say, as gently as you can, sliding in next to them, careful still not to touch. “You need to like, get a grip okay? We’re not going to hurt you and we’re here to help, so maybe stop biting off all of our heads. I know it’s been a rough time for you but like, there’s only so much we can even do. We can barely keep our own damn selves safe, you know? We don’t have time to chase after every asshole that needs help in the world.”

“I hate being useless,” Daginy murmurs, propping their chin on their knee, still not looking at you.

“And you’re not,” you affirm. You’re lying through your teeth. You doubt that rebelling has done anything of importance in the history of Alternia. “But you have to rest, Dag, or you will be, because you’ll be dead.”

They glance up at you then, almost shyly through the eyelashes of their remaining eye, and your pumper just about breaks. Herlyn’s wrong. You don’t have a pale crush on them. You have no idea what quadrant you want them in, only that you do, and you suspect they’re all out.

“Yeah,” they whisper. “I know.”

You hold your arms out for them. “Hug?” you ask.

They glance at you, considering it, then shake their head. “Thanks,” they say. “But I’m good.”

You try not to feel too slighted, as you nod.

“Fine,” you say, keeping the edge out of your voice, getting up. “Let me know if you need anything, ‘kay?

You regret coming. You hate that you regret it, because otherwise Herlyn, Daginy  _and_ Izinal would probably all be dead, but you had imagined the aftermath a little bit differently. You’d thought there’d be at least a little more gratitude than Herlyn smacking you excitedly on the back for two seconds and with fewer painful memories dredged up by Izinal’s reappearance. 

Daginy nods, leaning back into seat, curling up again, and you leave before you throw something.


	6. Daginy:  Backread

You backread; it’s what you do. You don’t have much else you can do to be honest. You’re not used to having actual down time. If you weren’t gathering info, you were putting plans into action, and if you weren’t doing that you were finding people to help, and if you weren’t doing that, you were trying to keep your own self alive.

But when you wake up in the middle of the day in cold sweat and dreams you would pray to forget, the easiest thing to do was focus on something else. And so you backread, up until the point you see Herlyn’s fake handle talk about fuzzy lusii and troubled sleeping, booby trapping hives, a fake mugging story, and a call for advice to deal with daymares for someone with flight fear right after she mentioned checking up on her fake moirail, which was  _your_  fake identity.

By the time you’re done reading you’re shaking again, only this time with a fuzzy sort of energy you eventually identify as anger. You can’t remember the last time you were genuinely this angry. You pull yourself to your feet and go find Herlyn.

She’s talking to Ferra when you walk in and you very quietly say, “What the fuck, Herlyn.”

Despite the volume, they both turn towards you.

“What?” Herlyn has the gall to look confused, but Ferra at least looks wary.

You shake the palmhusk at them.

“You told the chat about my daymares?” you demand. You’re talking without a stutter, you faintly notice, but your voice is still rusty from disuse. “How fucking dare you.”

“They don’t know it’s  _you_ ,” Herlyn says, but you shake your head.

“You could have screwed things up!” you exclaim. “There are people  _watching_  in that chat. You can’t just tell them about a random friend with all the same problems your  _fake moirail_ is having!”

You’re fairly certain Vadaya backreads. If he picks up on a discrepancy– you wanted _more_ breathing room dealing with him, not less. The less scrutiny you have the better.

Herlyn just displayed your vulnerabilities in chat– if they found out it was you _–_

If Hadean knew you were so helpless right now, he wouldn’t trust you with anything. You need your credibility to function and you worked hard to build it with the right people. You don’t want your troubles to be stripped out in front of the chat for Pheres or Pepper to comment on, like it was just another conversation topic in the chat room for them to debate on. You don’t want people to talk about you when you’re not there.

Herlyn shifts uncomfortably in her seat as you stand there breathing, trying to figure out what you even  _want_  from this.

“Hey,” Ferra snaps, “It wasn’t smartest idea but she’s just trying to help.”

You snort.

“Help?” you say, and as you speak the anger unfolds again like it’s been there all along “This is not helping!” You display the screen again and scroll through their multicolored advice.

“Sleep with a lusus? Where are we getting one of those?” you exclaim. “Get a moirail! Who the fuck would want to quad me?” 

“Well Hadean also said something about like,” Herlyn says, tapping her chin, “-coming up with better ends to your dreams and-”

“Like that works!” Impulsively you grab the nearest thing closest to you- a cracked mug- and throw it against the wall with a viscerally satisfying crash. Herlyn and Ferra stare at you, and you glare back at them with a sort of hyper aware headiness. 

“The only person with halfway decent advice was Pepper! And it wasn’t even advice it was the implication that talking to- to strangers! On the internet! Was maybe  _not the solution to my problems_!”

The anger feeds on itself. Breaking stuff is momentarily satisfying, but the urge to do it again is back again in waves, as you kick the wall, which doesn’t even have the courtesy to dent and so you kick it again. The movement hurts even, each sharp movement stretching barely healed wounds on your legs, your back, your arms– it just means that you’re feeling  _something_.

There’s a loud thump on the ceiling and you flinch, looking up.

Herlyn stands up quickly, hand outstretched. 

“Woah woah woah,” she says, cautionary. You immediately jump back, her one motion sending your pumper skipping as you wind up to run. It’s a small room, she can cross it in three steps to your five.

“Woah,” she says again. “Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m- you need to calm down, Sips’ furniture doesn’t deserve this.”

You look her in the eye. She’s right. It doesn’t. You don’t care. And in an impulse, you kick over a chair, just because you can.

“Hey!” Herlyn barks, stepping forward, and you careen backward, stumbling into the wall and grasping for it with, the casts on your broken fingers scraping for an exit. Fear beats back into you just as quickly as the anger did, because you did a wrong thing, you know it was wrong, which meant you were about to get hurt again– but when nothing happens and you chance a glance back up at Herlyn, she doesn’t look angry, she just looks heartsick, and you breathe, suddenly calmer, suddenly realizing that you may have been acting unreasonably.

“I-” you don’t know what to say. Your cotton tongue returns, soggy and stuck in your mouth as you pat your way to the door, looking for the door back into the other room, and retreat, not daring to let your back turn on your friends.

You’re hyperventilating when you pull back into the other room. You still don’t have anywhere to run. You can’t run. You’re stuck, you’re really stuck with Herlyn and Ferra and the helm, Izinal, they pulled from the ship. You can’t even tell yourself you’re okay, even to pretend, and you… you need their help if you want to survive, which honestly was still up in the air.

You don’t know how to handle relying on someone for more than a couple days. You’d felt it when Herlyn had tried to take your palmhusk, then burst into the chatroom the day before. You felt helpless, that she might ruin what you had done, what you had created over weeks in a matter of careless moments, and with that helplessness, you felt lightning hot terror when you admitted,  _you admitted_ , that you needed your online identities right now.

You feel your way to the corner, shaking, trying to force your thinkpan to work in any halfway logical manner, but all you feel right now is a tight, confusing ball of anger and fear pounding on the cage of your ribs, and one attempt at a steady breath turns into a trembling sob, and then another, and then another, and you can’t stop. You got rescued. You were supposed to be safe. 

You don’t understand why you still feel so trapped.


	7. Herlyn: Worry

Daginy exploded again, yelled at you, took your phone, and retreated back to their room, probably to shake, cry and sulk again.

You scratch your head. You said you’d give them some time but you don’t like the way you’re being treated. And you know Daginy’s just been through some shit but that didn’t mean they could just grab your shit because they didn’t like what you were doing.

You can’t really physically stop them because the moment you move suddenly they give up immediately, terrified, and even worse than sitting through their fits is giving them another panic attack.

“This blows,” Ferra says. They saw the whole thing. “What is their problem?”

You shake your head. “I dunno,” you say. “I mean it probably has something to do with the fact they got tortured but y’know.”

“Yeah,” Ferra says, then sighs and rubs the side of their face. “I know. This is so fucked up.”

“If you don’t know what’s wrong,” Izinal says from the corner. “Why don’t you ask them?”

Ferra snorts. “It’s Daginy,” she says. “We’ve tried. They don’t tell anyone anything.”

“Well I mean we can try again,” you say. Alnica was always talking about communication and stuff. “It can’t hurt.”

“They could throw something  _at_ you this time,” Ferra says, and you laugh.

“People throw shit at me all the time,” you say. “I got pretty good at dodging!”

Ferra snorts. “Your funeral,” they say.

You pick yourself up and head over to the room they shared with Mysmus.

You don’t know what’s going on between the two of them but whatever it was, it was probably good. Mysmus seemed like he had a good head on his shoulders and Daginy tolerated him a lot more than anyone else, even Izinal, whose head they had bitten off once for asking too many questions. They had apologized immediately for that one, but still.

You knock on their door and slip inside without waiting for an answer. Daginy’s huddled in a corner when their head whips towards you as if they’re expecting to run, but when they see it’s you, their mouth settles into a line of displeasure.

“You told Sipara I wasn’t taking my meds?” they snap. You notice they’ve got your palmhusk dangling loosely in their half broken fingers.

“You’re talking to Sipara on my handle?” you say. “And I’m pretty sure I told her you were just having difficulties. Which you are.”

They don’t always remember, they don’t always want to, sometimes they freak out when you approach with a glass of water and a couple pills.

“Yeah,” they say. They fold in on themself, tucking their arms in, still glaring at you. “I guess.”

“Sipara’s one of us,” you say. “Also your docterrorist. We can trust her, you know, even with your weird catfishing project.”

They don’t immediately say anything so you continue. “And like maybe I don’t do everything perfectly but I’m not stupid. We’re not in any danger now.”

The look they give you is sideways, a turn of their head that clearly says they disagree. They were always twitchy, but when had they gotten so paranoid? It had been perigees since you had actually seen them.

“Okay fine,” you say with a roll of your eyes. “What do you want me to do? I’ve given you all the updates.”

They stare at you some more, and you glance around the room for relief from their scrutiny. Just when you think you should probably leave they say, in a shaky voice, “S-stop talking. Talking about me.”

When you look at them again they’ve got you fixed in this stare you can’t quite decipher, but you’re starting to think fear is a part of it. Even from other side of the room you can see the tremor in their shoulders.

You don’t understand what they’re so worked up about but you nod. “Online right? I can do that!” you say, throwing up your hands. They flinch again, even though you’re all the way across the room and you remember you need to keep it down. “Sorry. I can do that. I’m not going to hurt you okay? I did save your life after all.”

You mean it as a joke but something in their face turns devastated and faraway.

“Um shit,” you say, backpedaling. “Sorry I didn’t-”

“Why?” Daginy’s voice is soft as you strain to hear them. “Why did- did you do it?”

You’re confused for a moment. “Why did I do what?” you say. “Wait, like- like save you?” You stop to think about it. You just remember hearing about what happened and seeing red. “I mean like I care about you so.” You shrug. “Eyup. Yeah that’s about it.”

More that they do, apparently, because they stare at you like you just ripped their pumper out. 

“Herlyn,” they say. “That’s a- a  _liability_.  _I’m_ a l-liability.” Daginy tucks themself into a smaller ball, clutching the back of their neck. “You should have- have left me in there.”

“What?” You’re astounded. “ _No!_ ”

They flinch again and you raise your arms in surrender. “Sorry! Sorry.”

Shit you’re bad at this. But you don’t think you’ll ever shake the image of Daginy, who was so small, covered in deceptively white bandages, the floor splattered with brown blood, curled up in Aubade’s arms, clutching at her like a lusus. To leave them there would have been unthinkable.

“No,” you say again, more firmly. “No. That was never an option.”

Alnica had said they wouldn’t have wanted it. She had seen this coming. You thought she was being ridiculous. Who wanted to die? But now you were beginning to think you should be worried. You’re glad you made them share a room with Mysmus.

Daginy’s done. They’ve got their head in their knees and their hands on their head and they’re shaking like a leaf. You get up, edge closer to them carefully. This is not your zone. This is so not your zone. 

You really don’t think you should leave them alone, but you also have no idea what you should say. You sit yourself down a few feet away, and resign yourself to sitting there in silence. 

Mostly silence. You can hear them sobbing quietly now that you’re close enough. 

You don’t know what to do. 

They panic when you speak louder than normal, they panic when they try to eat, they panic whenever someone moves too fast around them or asks them a question.

And they don’t- can’t, really, tell you why. You can guess what happened just based on the kind of injuries they have, but they haven’t talked about it all. When you ask, they withdraw, and sometimes, you don’t know why, they seem to panic for no reason at all. 

You don’t friggen know what to do.

\--

At some point you must have dozed off because you wake up to Daginy handing you your palmhusk back. 

“Oh thanks,” you say, rubbing your eyes with a yawn. 

They tap the screen with a casted finger, then retreat to their corner. You blink several times, listening to the soft tapping of Daginy typing slowly on their palmhusk. 

Yours lights up a moment later, and you see Daginy’s catfishing handle is texting yours. 

> **–harebrainedLibrarian [HL] started trolling blisteringBurnout [BB]–**
> 
> HL: hey
> 
> BB: hey
> 
> HL: i realized i never actually thanked you for pulling me out of there
> 
> HL: so
> 
> HL: thanks
> 
> BB: np lol
> 
> BB: how are you feeling? 
> 
> HL: idk. tired. sad. 
> 
> HL: sorry i lost my temper with you earlier too. i don’t know whats wrong with me. 
> 
> BB: buddy its ok. you gotta let it out right? youre going through a lot of shit. 
> 
> BB: though maybe screaming at me and throwing shit and taking my stuff is a shitty fucking way of doing it. 
> 
> HL: ugh. sorry. 
> 
> BB: hey its fine but maybe yell at ferra next time. :P

There’s a long pause and when you look over, Daginy’s got their head in their knees again. When you look back at your screen you can see they’re typing again. 

> HL: im sorry youre stuck with me
> 
> BB: wouldnt have it any other way tbh 
> 
> BB: instead of yelling so much maybe we could go set some stuff on fire instead. a+ stress relief would recommend
> 
> HL: .. i think im good
> 
> BB: oh right. you don’t like fire
> 
> HL: yeah. 
> 
> BB: sorry lmfao like honestly im sorry youre stuck with me bc im fucking awful at this
> 
> HL: i think you’re doing okay. 

There’s the sound of sniffling again, and you whisper, “Daginy?” They don’t look up at you, still typing, and you look at your phone again. 

> HL: if i wanted a hug
> 
> HL: would you?
> 
> BB: duh

You put the palmhusk to the side then, and scooch towards Daginy, carefully leaning over and putting your arms around their little balled up self. They lean into you, resting their head on the crook of your shoulder as you give them a little squeeze. 

They push you away soon enough and you let them. 

“How’re you feelin’“ you ask quietly. They look back at you, their chin still tucked into their chest, staring up at you with one eye (how  _fucked up_  was that you still can’t imagine how anyone could do that)– 

“Thanks, Herlyn,” they say. 


	8. Lyrian

You’re reading when the chief comes storming in, paper in hand.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, Aubade, you can’t just say shit like this without checking with us first!” They point at the section where you’re quoted. “What’s wrong with putting a bounty on these maniacs?”

You’ve been waiting to have this conversation. But you are still convalescing. You are on pain medication right now, and your back is wrapped up tight. You had surgery to remove glass from your lungs, and they are loud.

“This is a hospital, Chief,” you say. “Please keep your voice down.”

“I want an explanation, Aubade,” they say, shaking the paper. “This only happens if there’s special care that needs to happen in a case, not just because you want to be the one who brings them in. I know you have a personal stake in this but that’s not-”

“The child they took was one of my informants,” you say, interrupting him. “I suspect the ones who took them were trying to prevent me from learning more information about a group of rebels in the city. Retrieving that informant is top priority and requires delicate handling. I haven’t gotten much of a chance to talk to you since I am hospitalized and no one but journalist vultures have visited.”

You turn another page in your book.

“Perhaps if the Alternian Police Department was doing it’s job, a detective would have already have taken my statement when I regained consciousness instead of letting me slip through the cracks, simply because no one on the force likes me.”

“Perhaps I should let the Overseer know of due negligence,” you continue. “Such unprofessionalism should not go unpunished.”

There it is, the cymbal crash of fear.

“Dammit Aubade, are you blackmailing me?” they exclaim.

“Don’t be petty,” you say. “I’m simply letting you know of your faults so that you will do your job properly next time. I am in a generous mood considering my condition, and it may be in your best interest to see that it continues. Put a bolo out on the missing wriggler, would you?“

The chief’s face turns blue, his song blaring embarrassment and disgust and anger and shame. It’s a better look on them than the righteous indignation they were sporting earlier.

“And this- this is why no one likes you,” they sputter. “I’ll confirm your thing about the bounty and your shit with the kid. I hope they can remove whatever you’ve got shoved up your ass here, Aubade.”

You ignore them as they leave.

The hospital is a good place for you honestly. People are afraid here without you having to do anything at all. As long as you have something to occupy you, to think about something other than the gaping loss that threatens to tear you clean in two.


	9. Alnica

A dissatisfied businessman returns to his hive at the end of the night. One of his workers has been AWOL for two days. If she didn’t come back, he would have to start the application process. Deliveries would start piling up and there wasn’t enough couriers to make up the workload.

He dresses down for the night and sits himself into his worn couch. He has a drink in one hand and the tv remote in the other, and settles in for a vegetable night. A news report is on TV. It’s about the attack at the space harbor everyone is going on about.

“-ne troll to be about six foot, yellowblooded with asymmetrical curved horns and wearing roller skates and pyrokinesis,” the reporter lady says. “Here are two artist rendition based on witness reports.”

The troll spits out his drink as the sketches appear on the screen.

One of them is unmistakably his missing worker. He jumps to the feet and grabs the phone.

“Is this the APD?” he yells. “I think I know who blew up the harbor!”

————-

Alnica: Call it in.

You sit on your desk newspapers sprawled over the desk. Your hands are crossed in front of you and you look down at your matesprit’s face, staring back at you in a sketch. They’ve captured her likeness quite well, really. You suspect it might be because Herlyn fought more people. Ferra’s is much less accurate.

People who know her will be calling the police soon. She was always bombastic in the way she lived life. She was memorable. Her boss, her clients, her adrenaline junkie friends– not all of them would protect her.

Herlyn’s going to be investigated thoroughly, and you need to make a call too, unless you want suspicion to fall on you too, and you have too much at stake to be able to do it. You’ve already called for a suspension of Magpie activities. Not only is spy activity going to be incredibly dangerous in the coming few weeks, but if you’re investigated, you can’t keep everything the way it is. You need to prepare to bunker down.

At least she got Daginy, who by some miracle was still alive. They would know what to do. You’ve set up systems for the night like this. There’s too much scrutiny now, on your friends. You can never contact them again through conventional means.

Unless you set up enormous amounts of safeguards, you are most likely never going to see Herlyn again.

You press a palm to your mouth as tears spring to your eyes. You didn’t want this. You had a strong suspicion this would happen if Herlyn went, because subtlety wasn’t exactly a specibus in her strife deck, but she wouldn’t listen. If you had asked Herlyn to choose between staying safe with you, and saving the life of a friend, she would have never forgiven you. It was selfish, maybe, but doing the right thing had torn your heart right out of your chest.

Maybe if you had given her more help– no. You can’t start questioning your decisions now. The time frame you had to work with was much too tight to commit so many resources to. If the extent of the Magpie had been revealed here, you’d be in a much worse place. Your sources say that the APD suspects rebel activity, but not at the scale of which you’ve been doing things, which is something to be thankful for. You helped Ferra get where she needed to be, but that was all you could do.

Your tears are ruining the paper. You wipe your face and blow your nose. You still have a job to do. You already keep the sensitive stuff out of sight, but you need to reinforce your safeguards. You have your hidden panels and secret keys, but you need to purge your husktop of any sign of rebel activity.

When you are done, you reach for the phone and dial the emergency number.

“I know who blew up the space port,” you say, with a heartbreak you really feel. “It was my matesprit.”


	10. Herlyn

You look at the paper, with your face looking straight back at you.

“Oh shiiiiiiit,” you say. “Handmaid’s tits, this is bad.”

“Yeah,” Ferra snaps, pacing back and forth. “Honestly, how did you not think this was a bad idea?! You were way reckless. Did you really need to yell at that last person before you set everything on fire? You really know how to make impression I’ll give you that much.”

They hold up their own portrait and look at critically.

“Yeah I don’t look like this at all. My face isn’t this round, and they got my hair wrong entirely. My nose is totally cuter than this too,” she says, rubbing it. “But they definitely got my horns.”

“Hey we saved Daginy, didn’t we?” you wave to them in the corner, but they barely respond. Daginy stares back at you, and looks down. They haven’t said much at all, since you pulled them out of there. All they do is watch and hide.  “And we found Izinal!” Izinal was still getting outfitted with Sipara’s parasitic limbs.

“None of which was the plan,” Ferra says. “I mean, finding Izzy was great and all, but like, not if we can’t stay fucking alive.”

“Well we can change up how we look,” you say. “I mean, me especially.”

“The time honored tradition of broken horns,” Ferra says. “You’re gonna need to troll up and do it.”

You make a face. “Euagh,” you say. “But I like my horns. They’re so tall and curvy.” You run your hands along them. Alnica likes them too.

Ferra puts their hands on their hips. “Yeah, but I bet you like being alive even more,” she says.

You sigh. “I guess so.”

“You should probably cut your hair and shave your eyebrows too,” she says, looking at you with a practiced eye.

“My eyebrows?” you exclaim. “Really?!”

“Your eyebrows define your face,” they inform you. “We’ll just draw you a different set.”

“Seriously?” you complain. “That’s such a pain in the ass.”

“Welcome to being a big time Criminal with a capital C,” Ferra replies matter-of-factly. “If you didn’t want to do this, you shouldn’t have started with all this shit in the first place.”

“Well, then I have no regrets,” you declare and recline in your chair.

“Then I’m gonna see if Sipara will let us borrow her hacksaw,” Ferra says and leaves the room, leaving you with Daginy.

You give them a grin.

“I bet I’ll look good as a short stack too,” you say, rubbing your horns. You’ll be sad to see them go yeah, but hey, horn caps means you can change them up and everything. You’re definitely hanging onto your old ones and everything.

Daginy stares back at you, and gives you a silent thumbs up.


End file.
